we've been following it since it first became public hearing from detainees lawyers activists and experts as well as showing videos from the facility all that right now at r.t. dot com. now to some other news making headlines this hour in pakistan a bomb has gone off at an election rally in central pressure killing at least eight people including one child dozens of others were injured at the meeting of the secular national party the condition of the candidates is yet unknown this is the second blast in a day to target candidates of pakistan's may elections earlier road bomb hit an election convoy killing fall but leaving the politician unscathed. a magnitude seven point eight earthquake centered in iran has reportedly left thirty four people dead across the border in pakistan as yet iran's authorities say they have been no deaths there tremors were felt across the gulf and divide with buildings were evacuated all the way to new delhi people ran into the streets it was as powerful as the one in pakistan controlled kashmir which left seventy five

thousand dead in two thousand and five a week ago another quake in western iran killed dozens. syria's president has announced an amnesty for imprisoned rebels as part of national celebrations that will include the scrapping of death sentences according to the state news agency a sad also urged lebanon to put in place strict up border controls to protect civilians from clashes between hezbollah and syrian rebels. iraq has been hit by a string of attacks which have become known as black monday at least fifty five lives were lost there many more were hurt these blasts come ahead of the first election since the u.s. withdrawal from iraq aided in certain is an antiwar activist and he joins us now from brussels. well we've seen widespread coverage of these bomb blasts in boston and tragic events there but why do you think a larger scale attack in iraq with far more deaths hasn't actually drawn the same

media interest. first i want to see you know victims of the bomb or. doing. something. or occupant of. the media to be reduced or. misrepresent the situation or they don't report it at all. it's got it's very. these three little bombs being. a sectarian. civil war. which again. the. real. to the into that in six to twelve. it's a bit strange i mean. even if you look at three or if you do unicef website they give you a black screen and really ask you to thing a minute about the dreadful situation for the civilian population this has never

been done for iraq well the situation is far far worse now i mean there are still four million people displaced. ok well let's talk about the fact that these series of blasts have happened as iraq is actually preparing for an upcoming election part of its democratic process but fourteen candidates have been murdered so far how can a country possibly hold sarah lections under these circumstances. well the mayor is going to most. i've spoken to that there can be confidence when iraq will be truly a sovereign country under the occupation installed government have gone i mean we're talking about fifteen thousand people in the biggest like an embassy in the world backed up a government. the government has probably taken on in.

the states i mean how can. the work like that i mean this is possible. we do have a regime but it's sectarian fundamental element here the regime with the politician maliki who not only does the terrorism but also the anger of the people who only want stability the who want jobs who want basic services who want to run them arrest stopped they want them to do the rapes the women the sodomy of of men and children. they want and in mass executions and forced confessions under torture you know this this is a country i think it is it's not the greater ok we'll leave it there we haven't got brilliant quality but we can catch most of what you said but thanks very much indeed for your comments i didn't and life here and i to thank you for your time.

well still to come here an arctic crack formular police in bahrain far too against students and one hundred people arrested this month alone as part of tighter security head of the high profile pre this coming weekend more on that ahead for you here in r.t. . in the meantime we've got the business now with katie and she's here with us in the studio katie the international monetary fund a little pessimistic it's the global growth forecast indeed it has yeah and in there pointing the finger at europe right now and insisting that the e.c.b. does more to boost growth as well as europe we're also going to be chatting about russia too also dealing with declining great as well that's all coming up after the break in the business thanks a lot. oh

no lazy bureaucratic and trivial censorship strikes again but this time in russia a bill has been signed into law that will put fines on individuals and legal and to these for using vulgar in the media one major flaw of many with this is that they really don't know which words are going to be considered vulgar i guess these words are so awful that they cannot even write them down i'm not naïve there has always been and will always be censorship but this where would list is just silly there's a common expression on the russian internet that russian mainstream media conducts more and eyes ation of society russian t.v. does have all the bloody violent action movies as well as scandalous talk shows which are kind of more like freak shows and plenty of reality t.v. where young people pretty much act like subhuman animals in a cage they've got all that so the government is basically saying that if some guy on t.v. comes down twenty people blooded limbs flying that that is totally ok for television unless they come out for bid swear while doing it you can show brainless

materialistic dimwits sleeping and fighting with everything that moves on a reality show but if they say that one magic three letter russian word then it is over the line this is not a logical way to conduct censorship but that's just my opinion. choose your language. make it with. some. choose. choose the stories get it. cheap.

they're welcome to business this evening with me katie pilgrim. and the international monetary fund cut its global growth forecasts and urge your opinion policymakers to use aggressive monetary policy as the year era continues to battle with the recovery the global economy will expand three point three percent this year less than a three point five percent forecast in january the i.m.f. chief economist olivia by charles said that the main challenge for the world economy is so far in march europe pressure is mounting on the european central bank to do more to spur growth the e.c.b. decide to slieve interest rates on the whole that is a poor policy meeting the e.c.b. president that argues that the bank would monitor for a closely all data stand ready to act to boost the recession hit euro zone and saying with the region europe so-called powerhouse germany may have had enough from

german politicians are losing faith in the common currency artie's peter all of a has a story. following the shambles in cyprus the euro's had a tough time of late prompting some politicians in germany to say enough is enough . we're in a phase where the euro has become a burden germany has too much responsibility and it's getting heavy we need an exit strategy while it's still possible otherwise we could find ourselves in serious economic trouble. critics of the single currency point to a culture of bailouts which they believe will leave the eurozone towards self-destruction after all this state portugal spain greece cyprus ireland don't forget to work a little bit so what is the next and the next is already at your right front and if this happens italy and france then we don't have to discuss any kind of bail or

whatever then the euro is finally exit so some german politicians are suggesting that the euro is done and dusted however those in the banking sector say it's still got plenty of fight left in it yet certainly we've seen some. in the course of the past year. from several countries but generally my sense is that the person. on the prospects of the euro or the future of the euro has subsided a bit i think there's a bit more confidence that europe can regain its strength despite confidence among the banks there is real concern in germany that the longer it props up failing parts of the eurozone the more it puts itself at risk the financial ruin peter all of a business r.t. . if they would check out what happened on the markets you can see that it's down for ten service and a lot of that is because of the the investor sentiment fell sharply in april hit by

an acceleration of the year as an crisis and a global slowdown led by the weakening china forecasts is why you can see the foot in london also fell around six tenths of a cent to read across the board in the region. we'll be able to see the u.s. markets as well actually rising is a completely different story really is gold bounces back from its biggest decline in decades and the likes of coca-cola goldman sachs is already talking expectations i want to mention the housing starts actually rose in march by seven percent as well so we're looking at gains for wall street right now for the russian market so they continue to struggle in the session for the second day of this week it's really those growth figures from china that are still taking their toll mining stocks having a bit of it hope that the mike is the artist around seven firmly in the right for russia to check out the cars as we'll be able to see how the russian ruble got on i

can tell you that again the u.s. dollar in yearly russian currency households two point two percent against the dollar right that lowest since december when i mention as far as a euro is concerned the coin is now trading at its lowest level against the common currency since the summer of twenty twelve as far as a merging markets currency is concerned it's actually performing the worst right now that's out of all twenty of them so the russian ruble isn't very little right now. moving on it's not just europe that is struggling right now although russia is also on the pressure as its main commodity oil continues to drop meanwhile russian president vladimir putin is piling pressure on his government to kick start the flagging a quantum eight to ensure the russian economy doesn't follow in the footsteps of. good news but if. the global economic crisis is taking

a more dangerous shape which inevitably affects russia as well today we're again witnessing the slowdown of two thousand and eight however unlike our friends and partners in europe and other parts of the world the russian economy is showing the prospects of further growth. ok so good natasha sky right here to tell me all about it to get some details on this one now tell me natasha why is president putin might be focusing on this right now is the russian economy really in a disastrous state at the moment is that fair to say is that exaggeration tell me well it's really in focus this week because in addition to some choppy trade on emerging markets and lower gold that you mentioned this week you also saw some major volatility when it comes to crude and that's always reasons for concern when it comes to russia because we know that it's economic health or largely depends on or oil revenues of course but take a look at this graphic here one zif we can have it here here it is and no it's not

we're seeing basically is that over the past year crude prices have been gradually dropping and on tuesday they were ninety nine dollars a barrel having had a bull low one hundred dollars a barrel for the first time since the laast july and of course keep in mind that the russian budget for this year is based on one hundred dollar crude so that's really serious but crude prices themselves are actually based on a dissipated demand and the situation in europe as bad as china is weakening all we can expect is lower crude but not great for sure but if we talk about that if we look at a five year chart just here you'll be able to see actually oil isn't doing too badly a kilo i can tell you three years averaged out about one hundred eleven dollars per barrel which isn't really in the grand scheme of things if done much worse in the past true but we're not going to see these levels and twenty thirty and that'll

mean a lower growth for russian don't take it from me just last week russia's economy ministry actually slashed its growth forecast for russia from with three point six percent to two point four percent and if we can. i can see the numbers here perhaps we will in just a second basically russia's growth at two point four percent there it is will be the lowest since two thousand not in one it was also actually in the negative territory as indicated by this over a month ago here so the ministry also said that russia's two trillion dollar economy is actually facing a pretty serious risk of sliding back into the recession unless some serious measures are taken but of course none of this is a surprise considering what's happening in other places all the real world as you mentioned the i.m.f. just today slashed its global growth forecast while two types of percent doesn't

help russia. and europe overstayers in the epicenter of all so how does russia avoid this scenario what can be the solution is to avoid that little lady. while that little lady right there are two ways of going about it right first of all of course we need to kick start the economy and president putin really asked the government to come up with a concrete plan for doing that and it could include things like spending on infrastructure projects from one of russia's to solving the wealth funds could also be a special lending program for corporates but it has to be carefully done there because it could potentially stimulate the inflation and the central bank already declared keeping the inflation under the lid as its number one priority now what it comes to balancing the budget the state already said that it plans to sell stake stakes in its major enterprises including araf lot wrong as nafta wrong as telecom and

bear bank and of course these are blue chips so they're likely to see a lot of demand under favorable market conditions of moore's but all in all we're seeing a lot of pretty cool. and selecting goals and priorities but it has to be done the government has a lot of yeah plenty of challenges ahead i'm sure yeah russia europe. definitely will thank you very much indeed for that insight ok good stuff that is indeed the business for choose day but i will be back on wednesday evening at seven thirty g.m.t. so join me then but of course they would after a lot is up next with the latest news events. victims multiply here each day. it's very profitable to invest in colombia

with the very profit of the it is a very high return on investment. which is good though i mean he has said that i've been working in this area for thirty years and i've always had to pay the armed groups that when they bought me to buy this i knew the ministries have changed their name and strategy but just tell the same murderous. high ranking suspects give no comment pretty upset on that mr president goes. to president clinton. but the media. i won't give an interview i'm sorry but no. investigation is a dead. end and says sick and stop your bullshit and keep quiet or else you'll suffer the consequences. even if they're your bodyguards to watch themselves because the same goes for them. blood rids from synch

i've never heard of such a case as ours were so much money and gold has been stolen for so many years. for all the gold in colombia on our t.v. . show for.

the international airport in the very heart of moscow. news continues here in r.t. greece has a lot of delayed rescue loan by reaching a deal with its international lenders it only went through after inspectors from the e.u. and the international monetary fund completed their check on how athens is meeting the targets of the bailout the way to the next tranche of financial aid worth eight point eight billion euros is clear but the government will have to slash four thousand public sector jobs by the end of this year to get it unemployment has spiraled to around twenty seven percent in greece which is struggling to get out of deep recession for a sixth year now or to talk about networkers from the country's crippled industrial sector. cobwebs outside rainfalls on the still and silent pits attackers plastic piping factory and fesa lawmaking northern greece

inside the machines have been unused since banks stopped investing and the owner the oldest puts attackers fled in two thousand and ten one of his workers also be or course did meet the just one softer that he and ninety five other staff are owed seven million euros in wages and look at the after short talk i had to force myself to leave so i wouldn't hurt him workers see that they are being made to bear the cost of greece's economic woes this is the story. and of course the. it is. very unequal across the industrial northern greece the story is repeated this fertilizer factory used to be a center of northern greek industry nowadays though by economics fair or foul it's a ghost factory and the only fertilizer coming in here is imported from elsewhere in europe it produced specialist fertilizers until one day the workers were called

together and told by the owners that the know how for their products had been sold off and that operations would be stopped they are. it's criminal that a profitable industry has shut down an industry that produced high quality material and the human workers now see the cruel irony that since the factories closing fertilizer prices have tripled but it's a wider fear that one skilled workforce is a laid off it's all too hard to bring them back or got them us in the path of those who have the unemployment rate here is thirty percent by the years and it could be over thirty eight with no fission policy the situation is out of control as he's a people other workers across northern greece are desperate desperate to keep their jobs to get back into jobs and to be paid for their work it doesn't help ease their concerns when they're in positions like your bosses who have been unemployed for three years and he's off skiing in switzerland to martin r.t.

. north korea has issued new threats against seoul a day off to make a small gesture which suggested it was scaling back its confrontation with america in south korea during celebrations marking the birth of the founder kim il soon there was no sign of a missile launch as many had predicted but now pyongyang has demanded an apology from the south and north korean protests and vowed to retaliate warlike rhetoric has come almost daily in recent weeks killing young suggestions that it could testify one of its latest missiles at any time has provoked warnings of retaliation american south korean and japanese military forces are on alert in the pacific region washington spends huge sums of money on what it calls maintaining peace on the peninsula but china says this is only making the tense situation worse from the institute for policy studies believes there is a way out of the spiraling korean crisis but only if america softens it stands. there have been a number of initiatives coming from the obama administration some meetings in the

past over the first term even though the official policy was of course strategic patience in other words basically ignoring north korea as long as possible china of course is very interested in seeing negotiations go forward south korea under its new leadership. has proposed discussions with the north so all signs point toward negotiations on the other hand the united states has also said look there might be some preconditions here and preconditions in the past that basically scotched any attempt to have any negotiations so i think of the united states really wants to see some negotiations moving forward it's going to have to go to the table without any preconditions. police in bahrain of raided the boys' high school after the arrest of a student led to clashes the gulf nation is increasing security in preparation for this weekend's formula one race around a hundred people have been arrested this month alone the kingdom has been rocked by

more than two years of unrest between the sunni led government and shia majority seeking a greater political voice opposition member. says that international silence is making the situation worse. all of this being the silence from them for national community and just will probably. be doing keeping silent this is not. just something the government of the slowly with the big. security people who are controlling the political scene even and dragging the country into a more violent situation just a matter of this is what the in league and i think binding the formula one would be on the principle just appointed. prime minister. by nearly one to do something to stop what they thought this is another. hard

line of the whole make it. for the people of living in the fight being. within the ruling family is not allow. dunphy to lead perform it quiets the hardliners those long they are controlling the political scene and then can follow their government thank them for the security of the. after paying tribute to its form on memorial day on monday israel ushered in celebrations for its sixty fifth anniversary festivities come with with anti iran rhetoric at fever pitch and the palestinian peace issue as unresolved as ever paula slim reports. the country celebrates its sixty fifth birthday but it comes against the backdrop of settlement expansion continuing it also ignores the existence of

a huge palestinian population of which israel cannot control these kind of steps twitter and many are warning in effect to back we see this in many editorials they threatening to turn israel into a non democratic country where doc style of religion holds sway and there is a sizable and noticeable upsurge in the fall of white religious minority in this country that although small does have a very vocal representation there are real concerns over just how much power the religious have on monday the country held its national memorial day it is a day for israel's fallen soldiers as well as victims of terror there were a number of alternative memorials that will hold these call for attention to be paid to palestinian victims that they received very little attention in the mainstream media the criticism by and large is that it will commemorate all its wars as having head the higher moral ground when in fact there are very big questions over whether or not many of the wars were in fact the more such as the

fifty six sinai campaign the eighty two war in lebanon and the two palestinian intifada these are wars that are controversial but they are not presented like that in the general israeli discourse although there are widespread celebrations throughout the country there are a lot of person and important and critical questions that are being asked the situation between israel and its bordering countries is unclear the situation between israel and the palestinian territories is ambiguous and the future status over jerusalem is also unresolved many are saying that in fact the situation between israel and its neighbors remains fragile and unstable which is why many are asking what exactly is there to cheer about sixty five years on. let's bring you up to date for the moment that's all for me in the team for the moment but i'll be back with more news headlines in about five minutes from now stay with us auti life in moscow.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. a clear image of iraq after inflation. twenty day taxi trip through the country. the road full of danger. clear evidence from north to south. the route of iraqi tragedy. after the war waiting for peace. talks e on.